The best books about modern married life

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl gives two very different accounts of Nick and Amy’s twisted marriage, escalating into a thriller. At its heart is a wife’s Machiavellian revenge for infidelity, but the brilliance of the novel is its author’s perception that “marriage is sort of like a long con, because you put on display your very best self during courtship, yet at the same time the person you marry is supposed to love you, warts and all”.